


Bleeding Out

by A_Candle_For_Sherlock



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ficlet, Grief/Mourning, I find it difficult, Loss, M/M, POV Sherlock Holmes, Past Infidelity, That wife, This sort of thing, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, s4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-08 17:26:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8854261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Candle_For_Sherlock/pseuds/A_Candle_For_Sherlock
Summary: John lifted his own hand in a gesture of wait, stop; shook his head. “Just–-let’s be normal,” he said. The sound of his voice in the silence of the flat was pale, empty, half a whisper with tears just behind it, a voice Sherlock had heard from him only in the first days of his resurrection, the fearful newness of his return always between them. But now John looked at Sherlock like he was all the light there was left. “Give me tonight, yeah? Just one normal night.”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chrysanthemumsies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrysanthemumsies/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Истекая кровью](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12081918) by [Little_Unicorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_Unicorn/pseuds/Little_Unicorn)



The text came when he’d been playing the Stradivarius for more than an hour, when the thoughts in his mind had begun to run calm and clear without shame or analysis in the way they did only at the height of the music. When the alert sounded, he kept playing, let the melody carry him through to the end of the movement before he opened his eyes to the world again and picked up his mobile to see one new message from John.

_The baby’s not mine._

His fingers hovered helplessly over the screen for a long moment before he typed back, _Come here. SH_

_Okay._

Thirty minutes later, there was a series of steady, soft creaks from the stairs, followed by the small click of the sitting room door being pushed open, and he turned to find John in the doorway, blank-eyed and staring. The simple misery in his face settled into Sherlock’s chest with an ache that felt remarkably, breathlessly, like bleeding out.

John blinked; took a slow step inside, closing the door behind him, and Sherlock moved toward him, hands held out on pure instinct; but John lifted his own hand in a gesture of wait, stop; shook his head. “Just–-let’s be normal,” he said. The sound of his voice in the silence of the flat was pale, empty, half a whisper with tears just behind it, a voice Sherlock had heard from him only in the first days of his resurrection, the fearful newness of his return always between them. But now John looked at Sherlock like he was all the light there was left. “Give me tonight, yeah? Just one normal night.”

Then he pulled off his jacket, and his shoes, with slow, careful movements, clearly doing his best to work around the gentle unacknowledged tremble in his hand; looked around the flat as though searching for something, and walked steadily into the kitchen. Sherlock fingered through the periodicals in the bookshelf, unseeing, listening to the soft clunk-clunk of the cupboards opening and closing in the kitchen, water running into the kettle, the small noise of disgust John made when he opened the fridge in search of a lager and saw what was bagged in the crisper-–it was astounding, how right it felt, how the static in his ears cleared away and he could think again.

When they were settled side-by-side on the sofa in the lamplight, with John’s beer and Sherlock’s unacknowledged but fiercely-welcomed cup of tea, and the telly tuned in to some inane broadcast Sherlock wasn’t hearing, focused as he appeared to be on his laptop (fixated as he really was on John and sitting far nearer to him than he ever had before, not that either of them had acknowledged that by so much as a glance or a word or a breath out of place)–-only then did John seem to relax into his sorrow, inch by inch, as the program went on and Sherlock’s typing maintained a quiet background cover for his glances, the carefully unmoved expression he kept up while John’s face slowly drained of everything but grief.

It grew harder and harder to type, to think, to breathe.

When John’s phone went off they both jumped. “Text. Sorry,” John murmured; and why on earth was he apologizing? But he was opening the message; and then there was a minute of utter silence before he dropped the phone into his lap, and laid his head on the sofa back, and closed his eyes.

“She’s told him,” he said. “He’s there with them, at the flat.”

Fine spasms shook his hand, open on the sofa between them. It was too much; Sherlock took John’s small palm between his two warm ones, just firmly enough to take the impact of the tremors, and John let out a long breath without opening his eyes.

“I assume you’ve figured out it was–-David.”

There didn’t seem to be anything to say to that, except, stupidly, "Are you okay?”

John laughed. His closed eyes fluttered a little, and he laughed; and Sherlock waited for the _Fine, yeah,_ the impulse of John’s instinct to protect, to keep all his hurts safely hidden and out of everyone’s way.

John’s eyes pressed shut more fiercely; his mouth turned down.

Slow tears began rolling down his cheeks.

“John,” Sherlock breathed, and felt John’s hand shiver in his, and then a quick movement and he was curled over onto Sherlock’s shoulder, weeping silently; sheltering in him, burying his face in Sherlock’s shirt, damp heat spreading through into Sherlock’s skin. Something immense and furiously tender swelled inside of him. He held John’s hand carefully, close against his body; listened and listened to the unearned hurt cutting its slow way through John’s heart.

At last the weight of him against Sherlock’s arm went limp, through embarrassment or exhaustion; uncertain which without further data. He wasn’t sure if he ought to apologize. He hadn’t meant to uncover all that, to unmoor him so thoroughly, but John was breathing deeply, slowly, into his neck, and his hair brushed Sherlock’s cheek, and he wasn’t trying to move away; and there wasn’t much left that Sherlock was capable of doing, except bearing witness.

(He’s alive, he’s here, he’s safe. He’s alive, he’s here with me. I can help.)

So soft a whisper he couldn’t really hear it, could only feel the words being spoken into his skin.

“What?”

John pulled back, pink around the eyes, damp, not meeting Sherlock’s look. “I’m alone.”

“You’re not.” Too strong, too quick; John jerked at his tone. But that was so wrong–-“You’re not. I’m–-” Did it matter now? “I’m here. Always. I did say that.”

A moment, then: “You did. You promised.”

“I vowed, John.”

John, shattered, shining, worn out and empty and trusting, looked up at last and smiled.


End file.
